their force and boldness--Dr. Whately and Dr. Arnold--had developed
their theories about the nature, constitution, and functions of the
Church. They were dissatisfied with the general stagnation of religious
opinion, on this as on other subjects. They agreed in resenting the
unintelligent shortsightedness which relegated such a matter to a third
or fourth rank in the scale of religious teaching. They agreed also in
seizing the spiritual aspect of the Church, and in raising the idea of
it above the level of the poor and worldly conceptions on the assumption
of which questions relating to it were popularly discussed. But in their
fundamental principles they were far apart. I assume, on the authority
of Cardinal Newman, what was widely believed in Oxford, and never
apparently denied, that the volume entitled _Letters of an
Episcopalian_,[5] 1826, was, in some sense at least, the work of Dr.
Whately. In it is sketched forth the conception of an organised body,
introduced into the world by Christ Himself, endowed with definite
spiritual powers and with no other, and, whether connected with the
State or not, having an independent existence and inalienable claims,
with its own objects and laws, with its own moral standard and spirit
and character. From this book Cardinal Newman tells us that he learnt
his theory of the Church, though it was, after all, but the theory
received from the first appearance of Christian history; and he records
also the deep impression which it made on others. Dr. Arnold's view was
a much simpler one. He divided the world into Christians and
non-Christians: Christians were all who professed to believe in Christ
as a Divine Person and to worship Him,[6] and the brotherhood, the
"Societas" of Christians, was all that was meant by "the Church" in the
New Testament. It mattered, of course, to the conscience of each
Christian what he had made up his mind to believe, but to no one else.
Church organisation was, according to circumstances, partly inevitable
or expedient, partly mischievous, but in no case of divine authority.